


A Song of Home

by RastafarianTargaryen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Story within a Story, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:29:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4363133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RastafarianTargaryen/pseuds/RastafarianTargaryen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tell me a story.” Sansa’s bewildered look begged him to continue. “I’m terribly bored and I’ve exhausted my supply of decent reading material. I was wondering if you could tell me a story. An educated lady such as you surely knows many.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song of Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in canon, pre-Red Wedding but after Tyrion and Sansa have been married.  
> I wrote this as a birthday present for my friend Gillian, who I’ve known for 4 years now and who continues to amaze me with how supportive and funny and brilliant she is. Check out her [tumblr!](http://www.bright-wings.tumblr.com)

“Sansa,” Tyrion turned to face Sansa one afternoon in their bedchamber. She sat across the room from him, as was so often her favored place whenever he was around.

“Yes, my lord husband?” Sansa answered hesitantly, looking up from her needlework. Despite Tyrion’s tenderness towards her since their marriage, she was still mistrustful of the Lannister whose appearance was wild as a lion before her. The battle scar that marred his face did nothing to improve his appearance.

Tyrion ignored her refusal to use his name and spoke again gently. “Tell me a story.” Sansa’s bewildered look begged him to continue. “I’m terribly bored and I’ve exhausted my supply of decent reading material. I was wondering if you could tell me a story. An educated lady such as you surely knows many.”

It was true that Tyrion spent more time than not reading through some official document or old tome or other. This relieved Sansa because it meant the less time that he spent with her, the less time in which he might think to have her as a husband should. Tyrion had remained steadfast in his promise not to touch her until she was ready, but Sansa had learned not to trust anyone at face value. Something about Tyrion did begin to make her wonder if there were exceptions to that rule, that perhaps not all of King’s Landing’s players were engaged in a mummer’s farce to hold onto power. Perhaps Tyrion was simply Tyrion. This request was certainly an odd one (although much was odd about Tyrion) but not unkind despite his deliberate attempt at flattery.

“As you wish, my lo—Tyrion,” she corrected herself.

She had been quite the storyteller in Winterfell, often entertaining Bran, Rickon, and sometimes even Arya with her tales. When the northern blizzards deemed it too dangerous for outside play, Sansa was there to entertain her younger siblings with stories about creatures made of snow and ice. Sometimes she borrowed from Old Nan’s tales of ancient Westeros, but more often than not, they were stories that Sansa weaved and spun much like the cloth she used make her dresses. Since arriving in King’s Landing, her interest in making up stories had considerably waned.

Sansa wasn’t much in the mind to make up a story on the spot when Tyrion asked her. Instead, she chose a rather amusing tale from her childhood. Tyrion liked learning about her life before her imprisonment, in the distant lifetime before all seven hells crashed down upon her like the waves upon Blackwater Bay. She decided that entertaining her husband could do her no harm, or at least more harm than had already been perpetrated against her.

Sansa rose from her chair, daring to approach Tyrion and clear some of the space between them. They now shared the small couch in their chambers, Tyrion sitting attentively, waiting.

She took a deep breath and spoke tentatively, “I’ve told you before about my sister Arya and her tricks.”

Tyrion nodded encouragingly. She had told him often of the sister who liked to cause mischief and who he suspected Sansa had missed more than she let on. Her stories of Arya made him chuckle and reminded Tyrion a little bit of he and Jamie as children, playing tricks on a livid Cersei. That was before his brother and sister became lovers, spending more time with each other than with him. He nodded encouragingly, “You have.”

Sansa nodded in return, steeling herself as if confessing her sins to a septon. “Did I ever tell you about the time that we turned Theon’s face grey?”

Tyrion spit out the sip of wine he was drinking and burst out into laughter. “What?!” He placed his wine glass on the nearby table, his sudden full-bodied mirth threatening to spill the glass's contents. “You turned his face _grey_ — _Greyjoy_ —how?”

“Nitrate of silver,” Sansa replied matter-of-factly.

Tyrion’s laughter renewed at that. He met the young Greyjoy only once and couldn’t say he was impressed. Theon was all youthful cockiness and false notions of grandeur. Tyrion delighted in his amusement a while longer, finally speaking again coherently. “You most certainly did _not_ tell me this story for if you had, I would have surely remembered it.” _And possibly sent in a letter to his father_ , he added as an afterthought.

Sansa, forever armed in her lady’s courtesies, hurriedly justified her actions. “It was Arya's idea and hardly enough to burn or do any lasting harm to his skin. Though admittedly, it was a childish reaction to his torments, of which I'd had more than enough."

He saw the slight crinkle of her eyes and could not help but recall Theon’s latest torments against the Starks, taking Winterfell, slaughtering her two youngest brothers and betraying the oldest. He placed current events out of his mind for the moment and baited his wife to tell her tale. It was best to make her think of happier times. His lips curled up in an earnest smile. “I didn't think pranks were the weapons of ladies. Whatever did Greyjoy do to warrant such retaliation?”  

“Oh, a number of things. It was a cumulative reaction, really. Theon could be pleasant but often he was cruel to Arya and me, I think because of our sex. He intentionally broke a wooden sword Arya had stashed away from the armory that she wasn’t supposed to have. She was always doing things like that, going out into the training yard, training with twigs in secret. She had no hesitation about going after Theon for such a minor offense.” Sansa recalled Arya’s hot temper with fondness, the strength of her memories urging her to continue. “The last straw for me came at a dinner with one of our father’s bannermen, the Umbers I believe. Theon purposefully spilled tomato soup on my favorite dress. It was absolutely ruined, an ivory dress made for my last name day. At the time it meant the world to me." Sansa chuckled darkly. _As if a stained dress could mean anything anymore,_ she thought.

“She barged into my room while I was crying over my dress. My first inclination was to tell her to get out of my room, but I was so distraught that I didn’t bother to bother her. Usually she would mock me for my tears, especially over what she called ‘stupid girl clothes,’ but she just looked me in the eye and asked if I wanted to make him pay. I believe the words she used were 'do you want to make Greyjoy truly grey?' I said no…at first.

“A day or two after, I saw Theon again, laughing about what he had done to my dress. I kept on walking, trying to ignore him. Robb was with him. He told Theon to back off and leave me alone. He only stopped when he realized the girl he fancied that week was watching him. Seeing him not bothered by what he had done, and left unpunished moreover, stirred resentment in me, enough resentment that I conceded to be a part of Arya's plot. At the very least, we could make him feel like a fool in front of this girl he so desired, regardless of whether he discovered us."

Tyrion interrupted. "Your father never found out? You said he didn't receive any rebuke." He found it hard to believe that Ned Stark, sanctimonious follower of justice that he was, would leave anyone, especially any Greyjoy ward, left unpunished.

"He saw it happen. Everyone in the great hall saw. No, Father thought it was the result of an accident, simple clumsiness. He wouldn't listen to Arya nor me. No one did."

“I'm curious: where on earth did you and Arya get the idea to use nitrate of silver?”

“As I said, it was Arya's idea. One of the stable boys was particularly susceptible to warts. Sometimes we saw him come back from Maester Luwin with grey spots on his hands. Leave it to Arya to ask him why. See, nitrate of silver stains the skin a bluish grey color and in small diluted amounts, such as the amounts any good maester keeps on hand, does no harm.” She smiled devilishly now. "It takes forever to fade from the skin if it stains though."

Tyrion threw his hands up in mock surprise. "Lady Stark! I'm scandalized!" She giggled a little at his jovial tone. He noticed that her posture had significantly relaxed since she approached him from across the room. She leaned forward towards him, as if she were telling a great secret. In a way, she was. Her life before her arrival at King's Landing was a mystery to him. "Please continue."

She cleared her throat of the laughter and pressed on. "We decided that the night before another of Father’s bannermen was due to visit, we would sneak into Theon’s chambers and paint on his face with the nitrate of silver. The Reeds were to arrive in a fortnight so that was suitable for our purposes." She glanced at Tyrion, waiting for another question or comment from the dwarf. Seeing only his patient face, she kept at it.

“We discovered that there would be three difficult tasks to complete in order for this to work. First, we would have to retrieve the nitrate of silver from Maester Luwin without his notice. Second, we would have to sneak into Theon's chambers and paint his face without his notice. He never barred his chamber door so getting in would not be an obstacle. And last, we would have to return the nitrate of silver before it was discovered missing.

"Maester Luwin is not easily distracted or influenced and he always knew when one of us was lying to get out of some duty or another. I can’t tell you how many times Arya would come into his study with an upset stomach and leave with a lecture and a pout. I rarely pretended to be ill so we decided that in a fortnight’s time, when the Reeds were due to arrive, that I would go to Maester Luwin with some illness or other. The time came and I took Arya with me. He thought this suspicious as we never got along long enough to be in the same room together, but I told him that we were trying to forge a new friendship. He was satisfied with that as I recounted the tale of my illness. Arya sat out of sight of Maester Luwin and as quickly as she could, tried to find where he kept his nitrate of silver. I was making up signs of illness left and right, in an attempt to keep Arya’s motives hidden. Once she found the bottle, she signaled for me to finish. I can’t quite remember what illness I feigned but we left with some salve of crushed mint leaves and the nitrate of silver.

“Sneaking into Theon’s room when he wasn’t…indisposed would also prove challenging but Arya and I took turns staking out his room to figure out his schedule and when he would be in his room. He often shooed Arya away once he saw her because of her reputation for mischief so I did much of the investigation. After dinner on the night before the Reeds arrived, we hid around the corner almost all night waiting for Theon to return to his chambers. He did so very late, mercifully alone. We waited about half an hour and listened for sounds from his room. We heard nothing but snoring and opened the unbolted door. We found Theon alone in his room, drunk and passed out. 

Arya and I wore gloves. She held the jar while I painted his face, enough to look absurd. My heart was in my throat the entire time, hoping he wouldn’t wake up. He was snoring so loudly that he wouldn’t have heard us anyway. I painted a grey mustache over his lip and a grey beard on his face. He constantly bragged about how he could grow hair on his face better than Robb.

“He must not have had a looking glass in his room because he didn’t realize until he came down to break his fast. All of us burst out laughing, except Mother and Father who looked equally horrified. Mother was more livid. They asked him about his face, but he had no idea what they were talking about. They showed him and he howled in fury. They took him to Maester Luwin who knew immediately what it was. Arya found the stable boy before breakfast and told him to return the bottle before Luwin found out, which he did somehow. I never asked her how. Maester Luwin told them that he could not speed up the process of removing it since nitrate of silver stains deep. Father gave him an earful about disrespecting House Stark ahead of an impending visit from our bannermen. He was banned from attending the feast that night and was to keep out of sight for the entire visit. It kept him subdued but miserable.

"Afterwards, they questioned the lot of us, asking if we knew who had done it. I tried to tell Mother and Father that it was my idea, my retaliation for what he did to my name day dress, but Arya wouldn’t let me." Her tone turned tender now. "She confessed. They didn’t question her any further so the rest of us were dismissed from Father's study. I waited in the hallway outside the door, listening to the lecture she got. When she emerged, I asked her why she did that for me. I always thought she hated me. Gods know I was never overly fond of her. She only said ‘You’re my sister and anyone who stains your stupid dress deserves to have his stupid face stained as well.’”

Sansa smiled sadly at the memory. It felt like centuries since she had been that girl, making mischief alongside her sister or running around the grounds of Winterfell. Ages since she had seen Septa Mordane or gossiped with Jeyne Poole. 

Tyrion's chuckle brought her back to the present. “Remind me to never disagree with you, my dear wife. I daresay nitrate of silver would not complement my scar or mismatched eyes.” He waggled his eyebrows as if to demonstrate this point. 

“It was worth it though, in the end, to see the look of horror on the miller’s girl’s face when Theon talked to her next. He pretended as though all was well, but she couldn't look past the nitrate of silver beard and mustache."

"I'm sure she couldn't." _And can you not look past the ugly dwarf with the ugly scar and beady eyes?_ He felt a fool for thinking like that. She was just a girl and she had seen more than anyone should at her age. That didn't change his sudden rush of affection for her. 

Sansa and Tyrion were sitting mere inches apart now. The story had brought them physically closer to one another it seemed. Sansa met her husband's glance, not trying to avoid his gaze for once. Sharing that dormant part of her released a weight off her shoulders. It was hardly the same as being home in Winterfell-- _home_ \--but it was a temporary relief, a peppermint salve, for the aching burn she felt at being gone.

Out of the silence, they reached out for each other’s hands as if by reflex. Neither flinched nor drew away. It was like the old gods’ themselves, if they could even reach them here, had placed their hands together. For a moment, Sansa forgot that she was a captive. For a moment, she was home again with this man who had once been a stranger. Sharing in her song of home with another was better than listening to it alone.


End file.
